First Trimester: What You Need to Know.

I realize that everyone has different experiences with pregnancy. I also think that once the baby is actually here, people tend to sugarcoat everything that happened pre-baby, because the baby is so great that everything else pales in comparison. I want to blog about it all along the way, not just after. So let's do this.

The first trimester was the worst for me. I've never been so sick. So in all of my 15 weeks of wisdom, here's the best advice I can offer you:

Go to the doctor right away. Do not pass go. Do not wait. Go right away. They don't schedule your first appointment until 8 weeks, so I spent 3 whole weeks vomiting every single thing that I ate right back up, because no over the counter medicine worked for me. It makes me cry to think that I could have gone to the doctor the day after I found out and got a Zofran prescription. So do it. If you're sick, do not wait. 

Don't eat a ton of your favorite foods. I don't know why I thought it would be a good idea to eat my favorite foods when I knew I'd be throwing them right back up. Terrible, terrible idea. Now that I can actually eat, my favorite soups are off limits, as is any meat other than chicken, and, worst of all, all Mexican food. Do yourself a favor and just eat bland foods if you're throwing up a lot, otherwise you might ruin some foods for a long time.

Cut yourself some slack. I'd never been so sick, and I'd also never been so tired. I couldn't do anything, and it made me feel like the biggest slacker. Pregnancy is 40 whole weeks, surely I shouldn't already be out of commission at only 8 weeks. But dude, you're growing a human and it is sucking all of your energy. If you need to go to sleep at 8 to function, do it.

Don't freak yourself out. I wasn't planning a baby, so I immediately felt behind. I know nothing about having a kid or being pregnant! So, of course, I turned to Google. Big mistake. Because who knew that you're supposed to quit caffeine, and that doing ab workouts squish your baby, and eating too much chicken makes your baby hairy, and a thousand other bizarre, confusing statements made online.

And then I go to my first doctor's appointment, and the entire list of instructions from my doctor were as follows: Don't eat raw fish, don't smoke, don't ride a bike, and don't eat lunchmeat.

Well, that was easy. Take that, Google.

Make the best decisions for you. People all over have millions of different of opinions about what you should do or not do. There will always be a $200 stretch mark cream that you need to buy, people who tell you that going vegan is what's best for the baby, people who advocate only organic everything, people who say that you should or shouldn't take certain medicines, people who will tell you that if you choose to vaccinate your kids you're basically signing their death certificate.

Unless any of these people are a doctor, their opinion has no more weight than yours does. So talk to your doctor, of course, but then make the best decision for you. This is your baby, after all.

It gets better. I feel so much better this week than I have in 14 weeks. It is magical. So, just keep going. It gets better.

Here's hoping that the second trimester continues to be so much better than the first!